16. SWITCH TO VOICE MAIL. Answering machines, which are used by 65 million American households, guzzle standby electricity. (For more on standby electricity, see the Green Glossary at right.) Research from the U.S. Energy Information Administration suggests that converting these to voice mail would save more than two billion kilowatt-hours (see the Green Glossary at right for an explanation of this term) of energy. That’s comparable to taking 250,000 cars off the road for one year. If you do have an answering machine, unplug it when you’re home.
EVEN GREENER: Choose a long-distance provider like Earth Tones (earthtones.com), which offers paper-free billing and donates 100 percent of profits to environmental causes.